Sea Turtle Rescue

 

One of my favorite souvenirs for Thailand is a bracelet with jade turtle beads strung together.  Whenever I wear it I always get compliments on it.  And of course, I can’t help but brag that I got it at a temple that had a sea turtle rescue, off the cost of Sri Racha, ChonBuri, Thailand.  There are actually a lot of efforts going on in southern Thailand to help save the sea turtles, which warmed my heart among all the environmental woes in the industrializing country.  Watching all the turtles was so fascinating, I could have spent hours running around their pools.  It got even more exciting though… when I got to feed them!  Even their food, aka squid, looked cool!

If you want to learn more about the Thai Sea Turtles you can check out this site: Warthai.org or EarthJustice.org

 

Beach Street Vendors

It’s so hot and muggy out today it almost reminds me of Thailand, though it was actually about twenty degrees hotter in Thailand.  One of the best things to do on those hot nights was to go biking along the beach.  During the summer the vendors would still be open after dark.  While I wasn’t quite adventurous to try most of the food, getting some fresh fruit was always a nice treat.  I’ve been really missing all the delicious fruits, which were really the only food I ate most the time.  I wish we had vendors like that along our lake front.  Milwaukee drastically lacks street vendors in my opinion.

Shared Housing

One thing I found truly inspiring about Northern India was despite the poverty levels and the need of the lower class breaking my heart have the time, when I looked around I really saw a certain harmony in their world.  There was no questioning that a lot of the buildings along the Ganges while beautiful were in some need of repair.  What really gave them character though was how the buildings were used in so many capacities both by humans and the creatures around them.  There were several families of Monkeys running around the sides of the buildings while the birds nested on the roof tops, the dogs slept out on the brick steps to enjoy the sun, and I even saw a pair of mongooses running around the street.  All the while the streets and river were packed with people, everyone coming together in along the holy river.  It was a very inspiring thing to find peace in one of the most chaotic places I have ever been.

 

Dirty Ole Town

I recently reconnected with my flickr account.  I never really did understand what the big deal was about it, I’ve always preferred to use deviant art myself.  Anyways, I smiled when I saw some of my photos from Ireland up on it.  Oh the dirty ole town where I’d love to reside.  Dublin was one of those ideal locations.  Even with the failed economy I’d still love to live there.  On our trip to Dublin in 2009 I was still playing around a lot with the HDR setting on my old Pentax D200 (I miss it so), you can tell I was still learning the effects of it.  If you look past the graininess and the halos though I think this image really captures the dreay beauty of Dublin streets.